emotion = energy in motion

tuesday!

today i woke up and walked to the park where i did some cartwheels and practiced my handstands for a bit, before jogging back to my apartment. after that i got ready for work; making sure to grab my skateboard because i had plans to skate with a friend (i am so glad the weather is skater friendly).

today at work i disclosed my gender identity and two middle schoolers clapped for me.

thursday!

today, right now, i am listening to my neighbors yelling. the higher voice keeps screaming 'why did you do it'. the pain in her (pardon my gendering, this is triggering and reminds me of the majority of memories of my mother) voice is hard to hear.

i have a tedXtalk on so i don't have to listen to the chaos that is causing my stomach to churn.

PTSD: avoidance of my own reality. hyperarousal. overreacting to certain situations.

sometimes, just living is an act of bravery. -seneca

dissociation.

my mother pit my sister and i against each other. she conditioned me to never speak about her.

what she learned from her studies of psychology, she applied for her own self-serving gain.

a textbook narcissist as my sister would say.

she "doesn't remember" any of the abuse now. at 68, going on 69 in june.

ignorance, even if it is willfill, is bliss.

i keep grappling with this morality issue.

what is filial piety?

do we owe it to our parents to care for them when they can no longer care for themselves?

is it my responsibility to extend my newly forming newly cultivated compassion and grace to a woman who "did the best she could" - which actually contributed to the fragmentation of my development of 'self'

friday! morning!

i fell asleep while writing that, thinking about how when i took a philosophy course in college, my group assignment was actually the topic of filial piety, and that my stance had been vehemently 'no' it is not the duty of the offspring to care for their aging 'caregiver' if their caregiver failed to give them the care they deserved. i also remember the element of subjectivity played a big role, because the concept of generational trauma, and family inheritance in the most primal (we can only teach what we were taught) - and isn't it also everyone's individual responsibility to unlearn?

i remember being chided.told off.berated whenever i tried to correct my parents with the knowledge i learned in school. my sister says that growing up was kind of like that clip from matilda, where the father says 'i'm big you're small i'm right you're wrong' clip and it's so so so interesting for me to reflect back (without the suffocating collar of regret and shame, and rather, curiosity) on how even though my school played that movie on loop, i'd never connected that representation (i think partially due to lack of representation - and the fantastical element of matilda)

i clung to the fantastic. the possibility of there being a magic that would evolve and fix all the things wrong. with my life, with the world, with everything. i believed in the divine power. i believed in greco-roman gods. i tried to read the qu'ran. any avenue for some assistance. i didn't realize that the magic was within, and it was the ability to change. that the only true power we possessed was choice. now, my favorite line to teach my students is that everything in life is a choice. we don't get to choose everything (some things are chosen for us), but everything in between is a choice. we get to chart our own course.

the question "why" used to trigger my parents insecurity. they didn't know the answer, and before the internet, didn't know where to get the answer, and after the internet, didn't trust the answers.

now we live in the age of the algorithms and AI - where my dad's wildest fears are realized.

friday! evening.

i'm on the phone with my mother and i think it's the best call we've had so far.

the last time she called me i was at a liberation haggadah event and i was thrown off but also didn't want to not pick up because there is still the part of me that cares and knows i am one of very few she has to rely on. whenever we chat over the phone, she always points out my tone of voice, which is hard for me to always regulate, but this time we were able to talk all the way through about it - even getting to the point where she was able to acknowledge that often what fueled her rage and pain was her insecurity. i never thought i'd see the day where my mother would be that level of introspective and it felt really affirming for baby joules.

she also asked me how i want her to spell my name, and if i wanted her to include my chinese name (which i didn't) but while unfamiliar it was nice that she was considerate enough to ask.

i know they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but i think maybe if you try hard enough, and if the dog wants to learn, maybe you can. choosing to be kind and compassionate to my mother now feels like i am healing the wounds she caused my baby self - because life has shown me enough love to make up for the love she wasn't able to give me, even though i wanted, needed, and deserved it as a child - i am still able to give and receive it now.

i've been crawling through bell hooks' all about love - it's been highly activating so i can only read it in bite size bits, as it helps to resurface all that i've repressed and avoided for longer than i can remember.

"The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.

When individuals are wounded in the space where they would know love during childhood, that wounding may be so traumatic that any attempts to reinhabit that space feels utterly unsafe and, at times, seemingly life-threatening." p.153 from the mutuality: the heart of love

i've been taking meds for my adhd pretty regularly this week, and i think they've maybe been helping. i think the tricky balance of opting for meds is finding out what works with your body and what doesn't, and also being in tune with your body enough to notice the subtle changes.

when i began testosterone back in july of 2021 - i don't think i was previously in a place where i was attune enough to notice the physiological changes that began. i've since switched it up because i didn't like how deep my voice was dropping, but this also has led to my resurgence of *acne*

friday! tonight!

i lit candles for shabbos because it's friday night and it's finding the little rituals that can honor the people who keep the flame in our heart hearths lit, even if they are just meant to add some kindling and move onward.

last week i saw return to seoul and wow did that film activate some primal parts of me ~ (the premise is an adoptee returning to korea and going on a journey to find both her birth family and herself along the way)

*oh god the loud neighbors are yelling again*

i'm gonna end this one here because it's 4/28 and i like that number and i think this has been enough incremental updates for this week (plus my laundry alarm just rang and i have cleaning to do and i saw that sweet tooth has another season so i'm excited to start that)